Brad Bird‘s Tomorrowland was always a gamble. Sometimes gambles pay off big, other times they don’t. Now it seems, despite the combination of an Oscar-winning director, a proven box-office star and a high-concept, Disney-approved idea, Tomorrowland will end up losing Disney somewhere around $140 million. Read more about the Tomorrowland box office below. Read More »

The backstory for Brad Bird‘s film Tomorrowland contains a lot of detail about the beneficent cabal known as Plus Ultra, a secretive group of dreamers which conceived and built a futuristic creative paradise. In the actual film, however, we don’t see too much about Plus Ultra. Scenes were trimmed for length and pacing, and much of that story was left out of the film, along with all mentions of Disney.

Pixar actually animated a short scene that was meant to quickly define and explain Plus Ultra. Bird, however, decided the bit killed the pace of the film, and he cut it. That clip is online and you can watch the Pixar Tomorrowland sequence below. Read More »

I talk with Jeff Jensen about how he went from a television writer at Entertainment Weekly to collaborating with Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird on the story for Tomorrowland. I must admit, I planned to go in and talk to Jensen about how the 1952 box was fabricated and how the script influenced the box and how the box influenced the script, but I found myself kind of blindsided with Jensen’s reaction. Jeff continued to pretend that the 1952 box wasn’t a creation of the team behind the film, which threw most of my prepared questions out the window. We still discuss how the box was used to sell executives and early Disney fans on the ideas behind the backstory of the movie.

I talk to Jeff about the early development of the film which saw two dueling ideas, one being a more Harry Potterapproach and another more inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We also talk about the amazing Plus Ultra backstory which didn’t fully make it into the film but can be discovered through the tie-in prequel novel Before Tomorrowland he also wrote. Read all this and more in my Jeff Jensen Tomorrowland interview, after the jump.

By now you’ve heard it a million times. After J.J. Abrams passed on the film a first time, Brad Bird was given the opportunity to direct Star Wars Episode VII. Bird, however, had to choose between Star Wars and Tomorrowland, a film he was also passionate about which was already in pre-production, and had a star attached. Obviously, Bird chose Tomorrowland, Abrams reconsidered and both are very happy with those decisions. However, fellow Star Wars fan and Tomorrowland co-writer Damon Lindelof recently said he was sure Bird was going to leave their project. In fact, he told Bird to do so and Bird happily surprised him.

Below, read what Lindelof thought about Bird’s choice, if Lindelof would do a Star Wars movie, and Bird’s quote when he’s reminded there’s an opening for a Star Wars Anthology film. Read More »

The Japanese trailer for Brad Bird‘s Tomorrowland had a very explicit reference to the Walt Disney theme park the film is named after. While investigating a mysterious pin, Casey (Britt Robertson) ends up at a geek store called Blast from the Past. There, the clerks played by Keegan-Michael Key and Kathryn Hahn explain the link between the Disney theme park and the real life Tomorrowland of the movie. But when the film hits theaters on May 22, that exchange won’t be there. In fact, the name “Disney” isn’t mentioned in the film once. While we see some of his creations, the character and theme parks are pretty much a non-entity.

In a new interview, Tomorrowland producer and co-writer Damon Lindelof explained why the above scene was cut along with other references to the visionary filmmaker. Read about the Tomorrowland Walt Disney references below. Read More »

A couple weeks back I got a chance to chat briefly with director Brad Bird and talk about his newest film Tomorrowland. I asked for an update on the long-rumored Iron Giant blu-ray release, what it means and doesn’t necessarily mean to be a live-action Disney film, the super slick modern look of Tomorrowland vs. the retro-futurism of ray-guns, how Space Mountain ended up in the movie, and Bird’s earliest memories of Disneyland.

We also talked about how the Space Shuttle Endeavor flying over the Disney Animation building had a huge impact on the film’s story, as well as my favorite sequence in the film (an amazing long “one shot” that lets us explore Tomorrowland for the first time), and I jokingly ask if Brad plans to reprise his role as Edna Mode in Incredibles 2. Read a transcript of my Brad Bird Tomorrowland interview, after the jump.

Brad Bird‘s Tomorrowland is a celebration of dreamers and thinkers of all kinds. A few famous dreamers and thinkers, like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and Jules Verne, even make it into the film in a roundabout way. And originally, there was at least one more that Bird wanted to include.

The filmmaker reveals he initially had plans to include a Stanley Kubrick cameo in an early scene set at the 1964 World’s Fair. Hit the jump for more on the Tomorrowland Stanley Kubrick cameo that never was. Read More »

This weekend, the latest Brad Bird movie, Tomorrowland, hits theaters. Bird loves cinema in its purest fashion, so leading up to release he was very careful about what to reveal about the movie. He also did something special for IMAX presentations of the film, presenting it in a larger than normal aspect ratio to really take fans from the real world to the future and Tomorrowland.

From The Iron Giant, to The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, we here at /Film are huge Brad Bird fans. We know you are too. So we jumped at the chance to give away a Tomorrowland IMAX one sheet signed by Bird himself. Below. find out how to enter. Read More »

This week finally brings Brad Bird‘s original Disney sci-fi adventure Tomorrowland to theaters. Just yesterday brought some early buzz on the film, and it doesn’t sound overwhelmingly good. Our own Peter Sciretta has seen it a couple times, and was a little disappointed, but has warmed up to it after revisiting. Everyone else can judge for themselves this weekend.

In the meantime, Poster Posse has decided to put together a small tribute to the film with a few wonderful pieces of artwork. Check out the Poster Posse Tomorrowland artwork below! Read More »

The embargo has finally broken for Pixar’s Inside Out and Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, and you can read the buzz reports compiling the early critical reactions at the links above. I’ve seen both films and have decided to write up my thoughts in a virtually spoiler-free reaction. Hit the jump for my thoughts.